Having booked 6 spaces in the CIC hut almost a year in advance, me, Rob, Simon, Carmen and two non-YAC members Andy and Matt headed up to Fort William for the Easter weekend. On the drive up, me, Rob and Matt stopped off to buy the food. Me and Matt were shopping for so long that Rob almost called the police to report two people missing in Tescos. When we eventually arrived at the car, amazement was expressed at how much food we had bought for a weekend away. In particular, our complete disregard for weight (i.e. buying precooked noodles instead of dry ones and one pack of pitta bread per person). Oh well, carrying heavy packs is bound to be good training for something.
We met up with Andy (who had driven from Portsmouth!) and Simon and Carmen and spent Thursday night in a bunkhouse. Friday morning was very wet and miserable so enthusiasm for setting off was limited. Forecasts and conditions reports were mixed, so I was really having to spread my optimism around generously to keep any hopes of winter climbing alive. While packing our ridiculously large packs, Matt noticed he'd forgotten his boots – this provided an excellent excuse to go shopping in Fort William and waste a bit of time drinking tea. With Matt £350 worse off, we finally headed for the north face car park and slogged our way up to the CIC hut. The general consensus was that this did permanent damage to all of our shoulders. Also, the large selection of fresh vegetables I had carried up had somehow managed to turn into a putrid juice which infected all of my belongings.
With a cat 4 avalanche forecast and everyone we met saying the snow was dangerously wet, we decided to spend the afternoon scrambling up castle ridge. This gave a good couple of hours entertainment and a good exercise in scrambling in the wet in plastic boots. We finished in the snow with a taxing descent over scree back to the halfway lochan. Our hopes for anything wintery were all but dashed at this point and we resolved to go for a "summer" ascent of tower ridge the following day.
We set off in two teams of three (rob/simon/carmen and me/matt/andy) in the morning and were pleased to note that the snow at the foot of observatory gully had refrozen hard. Also, much of the ridge had a cover of fresh snow. Once we were on the ridge, the sun came out and we were all waxing lyrical about "alpine conditions". At the first steep step, verglas made us put on crampons and move together (the other three took this opportunity to overtake by soloing ahead). From this point on, the whole route was on good snow, with occasional mixed and ice steps. We caught them back up at the little tower where a queue had formed getting past a tricky step.
Four more pitches beyond this got us to easy but exposed snow leading to the great tower. The eastern traverse looked fantastic, really easy but outrageously exposed. It was matt's lead but I got equivalent excitement going last. By this point it had started snowing and it was getting very cold waiting on belays. We heard some shouts drifting down from the top suggesting the other team were on the final snow slopes. So we were quite relieved to round a corner and find ourselves at tower gap, my lead – argh! I teetered along the narrow snow ridge as far as the final boulder and got in some bomber opposing nuts, then lowered myself into the void. I made the mistake of climbing right down to the top of glover's chimney (the other two just made a large stride over the gap) and spent a good ten minutes trying to work out how to climb back out. Eventually I commited to hanging off a one axe torque and bellyflopped onto the other side (rob later told me it was much easier to bridge up the gap – oh well!) A bit more snow led to the bottom of a small chimney, with an obvious belay at the top – "no more rope" Matt shouted. Bugger! We had to move together for a few metres until I could reach the belay and bring matt and andy over.
The end now felt very close, but for the first time we had to move together with no protection and the top out looked interesting. With matt belaying me from a bucket seat, I headed up and placed a small nut in the final wall before thrashing my way up the loose snow slope and cornice. We were all delighted to find ourselves on flat ground again, although we couldn't see much of it as it was almost a whiteout. We began following bearings to get back to the zig zags when we stumbled across a family sitting in the snow in jeans and trainers – "are you mountain rescue?" they said. They tagged along at the back as we continued on our way. We then found another group of walkers – "do you have a gps?" they said "no, but we know where we are". They also tagged on the back. Like the pied piper, we picked up various other stragglers along the way until once we left the cloud we had a group of 15 people following us! A long walk back to the halfway lochan and then back to the hut got us home in time for tea. Tower ridge took us 8.5 hours in total so no records for speed, but it was an absolutely brilliant experience and in excellent condition for a winter ascent.
The forecast for the next day was looking perfect for some ice, so me, matt and rob headed up observatory gully for tower scoop, while simon and carmen headed into coire na ciste. Many more people were out on the sunday, queues on indicator wall, parties on smith's route, point 5 and good friday climb as well as lots on tower ridge. After a long slog we arrived at the bottom of tower scoop to find lovely thick plasticy ice. I led the first pitch and finally got to use my petzl ice flutes (which are brilliant). Some rather complicated rope arrangements for our party of three ended up with Rob leading the final steep ice pitch belayed by both me and matt. Me and matt were certain the final ice must have been vertical but rob assured us it was nowhere near.
We finished up tower gully, spurred on by the ginormous drooping double cornices. There were some tracks outflanking the cornice on the right, but this looked horrendously exposed. Rob opted for an alternative: smash through the bottom cornice, crawl along for 10 feet between the two and then smash out through the second cornice onto the plateau. I found this mildly terrifying and was very pleased to arrive on the plateau in bright sunshine to join the crowds at the summit.
A quick romp round the carn mor dearg arete led us to the summit of carn mor dearg from where a series of snow patches could be linked to allow a 600m glissade almost back to the door of the hut. All that remained was to repack all the food we hadn't eaten and carry it all back down. My strategy was to minimise the time spent with the pack on my back so I ran from the CIC hut back to the car in 49 minutes (probably doing permanent damage to my knees in the process).
Hopes of a warm bed in a bunk house were dashed as they were all full, so we wild camped in glen etive. Gluttons for punishment that they are, Rob, Simon and Carmen squeezed in a munro on the monday while me, andy and matt devoured a scottish breakfast.
Overall, a fantastic weekend that defied the apparent lack of winter to give 3 days of adventure. The extension to the CIC hut has turned it into a very comfortable place to stay (though the SMC members we met could barely have been more stinging in their criticism of the workmanship!) Perhaps we'll take a bit less food next time though.